


a little wicked (that's what he calls me)

by yeeharley



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Angst, BAMF Peter Parker, Bisexual Peter Parker, Cuddling, Fluff, Gay Harley Keener, Gen, Halloween, Happy Ending, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Homophobia, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Illness, Making Out, Protective Harley Keener, Protective Peter Parker, Romance, Supernatural Illnesses, but no smut, minor original characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeeharley/pseuds/yeeharley
Summary: Footsteps, gentle and quiet, resonate underneath the crack in the door. Harley swallows dryly as the latch clicks, as the door creaks open, spilling warm light out into the dark night.He’s expecting some sort of old woman with a sharp nose and gray hair and cold eyes. Maybe a few warts. Hunched back. Black hat. Would a broom be overkill? Probably, but that’s the only instance of witches he’s ever seen.That’s not what he sees, though.Standing on the other side of the threshold is a boy- a teenaged boy, definitely no older than Harley and probably a year or so his junior. Russet brown hair curls down into his eyes, cascading over his forehead and tucking itself around his ears, where a pair of shining orange stones are inlaid.The boy looks up at him, a few inches shorter and just about as slim, dark eyes shimmering in the light of his house. He smiles- a cheshire smile, slightly scary and just a bit too toothy. His canines are sharp.“Can I help you?”(In a desperate bid to save his dying mother, Harley reaches out to the town witch only to find that he's growing attached way too much. Peter Parker vows to save his latest customer's mother at the expense of his own wellbeing)
Relationships: Harley Keener & Harley Keener's Mother, Harley Keener & Harley Keener's Sister & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter Parker/Harley Keener
Comments: 14
Kudos: 195





	a little wicked (that's what he calls me)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! If some of you recognize this, it's a repost of the first part of my other fic, 'talking to the moon'. That was set to be a multi-chapter work, but I really wanted to post this in a one-shot format and didn't really like the format. I'll be deleting that fic shortly to keep my account looking neat!
> 
> If you're here from 'talking to the moon', the new part begins after the third page break, right after 'what has he done?'. You can skip to that part if you'd like!
> 
> My tumblr is [silver-bubbles](https://silver-bubbles.tumblr.com/)! Follow me over there for updates on upcoming fics and to watch as I have multiple mental breakdowns every week and overshare about them.
> 
> The title of this fic is from A Little Wicked by Valerie Broussard.
> 
> Warning for a bit of making out in the last half. Nothing too bad, but I know that weirds some people out <3

Harley’s childhood is filled with scraped knees, bumped elbows, and papercuts, just like every other kid he knows. 

He falls off of his tricycle, his bike, his skateboard. 

Ends up with concussions during baseball season from sliding too hard and knocking helmets. Gets beat up behind the high school and learns how to fight, a boy of bruised knuckles and sharp eyes and a hateful tongue.

He learns and grows. Changes from a wide-eyed little boy who waits for his daddy to come home to a preteen with gap teeth and a wide smile to an angry, hurt, dangerous teenager.

And everybody around him changes with him.

Harley Keener is not special. Harley Keener is like every other kid. Sneaks out after dark. Smokes behind trucks in the gas station parking lot. Tries to figure out the best way to get back at the senior who spit at him and called him gay.

He sits in the back of a tractor trailer with his friends- or the people he  _ thought  _ were his friends- in the middle of the night, laughing and eating chips and telling ghost stories that scare the living shit out of the others. They tell him he’s the best at storytelling, and he  _ runs  _ with it, because he’s never been the best at anything before and he wants to show them that,  _ yeah,  _ Harley James Keener tells the best damn ghost stories in Rose Hill and you’d better believe it.

The big distinction to make, though, is that his stories are fake.

Yarn spun in the back of his mind that just happens to spill off of his tongue and into the ears of others.

They’re scary, sure, but Harley sleeps at night knowing that they are his. The other boys see his words in their nightmares, their closets, the backs of their beat-up junk cars when they’re driving home after work and it’s dark.

Harley tells them and then leaves them. They’re nothing but stories.

But there’s one back-of-the-truck night that sticks with him for years, lingers in the corner of his brain reserved for fears, haunts his every sleeping moment like a shadow with no source. 

And, in the end, it’s the one back-of-the-truck night that really and truly matters.

It’s late- maybe even to the point of being very, very early- and Harley is, once again, sitting in the bed of Aidan Wilson’s monster of a pickup truck with a lit cigarette in one hand and his hoodie pulled tight around his shoulders. He’s just finished with his story (as usual, he’s managed to make the biggest boys in Rose Hill afraid of the dark) and the guy to his left- Cade Arnette- is about to take his turn.

Cade isn’t usually very good with stories.

His vocabulary is lacking, he can’t write a decent jumpscare for shit, and if Harley’s being honest, they’re rarely even mildly scary.

But this time, it’s different. Because Cade starts out with those infamous words, the ones Harley’s heard around town for the last half-decade.

“Have you heard about the witch in the house on the edge o’ the woods?”

With that one question, every pair of eyes in the truck immediately flashes to Cade, fixing on his lips. Harley instinctually burrows further into his hoodie and lifts the cigarette to his lips, sucking in before blowing a small puff of smoke out from between his teeth.

“Not this bullshit again.” Aidan laughs, but there’s a nervous edge to his voice and the way he’s watching Cade says much more than his words.

The fourth boy in the truck, Levi, punches Aidan in the arm and hisses out a  _ shut up. _

They like this story. It scares them, but they like it.

“Alright,” Cade says, glaring daggers at Aidan out of the corner of his eye. “So ya’ll’ve heard about the witch in the woods on the west side o’ town.”

The three other boys nod in tandem. Harley takes another drag on his cigarette and leans back against Cade’s hunting bag.

“You already know the first part o’ the story, then.” His voice drops down to a low murmur and, eyes dancing with sly fire, reaches his left hand out and places it palm-up in the middle of their little circle. “Rose Hill’s just comin’ into existence when she sets up camp in some kinda shack on the edge of the settlement. Nobody really knows what to do with ‘er ‘cause she’s pretty weird, but she keeps to ‘erself and everyone let’s ‘er.”

Yeah, Harley’s heard this story many times, but never at night in the middle of one of the old cow pastures. He’s sure Cade’s got a gun somewhere in his truck, and he’s got a knife with a three-inch blade and a lighter, but that’s not enough to fight off a witch.

He doesn’t think any of the boys have a Bible with them, either.

“And it stays this way for a pretty long time,” Cade continues. His hand flips over, fingers dancing in the air like he’s playing an imaginary piano (Harley knows for a fact that this boy couldn’t play the piano any more than he could do calculus). “But, eventually, as Rose Hill grows and starts to reach the woods, she starts to wonder if they’re gonna get into her territory. Ya know, people here have bad habits with trespassing, and no witch wants people all over her property.”

_ Harley doesn’t really want anyone all over his family’s property, either. Does that make him a bad person? Hell, no. _

“And as they keep expanding, she gets more and more afraid that they’re going to mess around with her.” 

Cade’s expression is devilish, illuminated by the beam of Levi’s hunting flashlight. Harley shivers again, grimacing.

His cigarette is burning low.

“So she decides to send a message,” he murmurs. His right hand hovers in midair, tracing out what Harley assumes are letters. “Writes it on the trees outside of her domain-  _ abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” _

Harley blinks, surprised. He’s about eighty percent sure Cade had slept through their freshman Ancient Literature course, but go figure.

Levi, sitting beside him, burrows into the arm of his coat like a small child. Harley moves away.

He doesn’t need any more reasons for people to mess with him, and Levi knows that.

“The townspeople see the message, and they ignore it.”  _ Of course they do.  _ “They keep movin’, buildin’ houses and pastures- just like this one- all over the witch’s land. And with every foot they step into her domain, she gets angrier and angrier until she calls upon all her witchy shit-”  _ eloquent, Cade, very eloquent-  _ “and gets her revenge.”

This is the part of the story he hates. The part he’s despised ever since Abby, the light of his life, was born.

“She casts a spell over the village,” Cade whispers. “on a rainy night in the middle of October, when it’s gettin’ close to Halloween and she’s at her strongest. And she waits for a week or so until she knows it’s gonna go into effect, and then she goes back into her house an’ celebrates.

“The next Monday, right after Sabbath, a little girl goes missin’.” 

Harley bites his lip, closes his eyes. Not Abby. Not real.

“And then the another the next, and the next, an’ the next. Every Monday for a month, a family loses one o’ their kids. They stop movin’ into her territory for fear o’ losin’ even more, and everythin’ goes back to normal- or, as normal as it would ever be again.” Cade trails off, grinning toothily at the others. “An’ they say that if you go out into the woods on the west side o’ town and pass the first mile marker, the witch’ll come out and take you too.”

They’re quiet for a little while after that. Harley’s cigarette burns its way down to the butt and singes his fingers, but he barely reacts, only tossing it to the ground and crushing it under the heel of his shoe.

He goes home that morning around five, sneaks past his mother and sister’s rooms, and hammers a box of three-inch nails into the head of a baseball bat. Finds his long-gone father’s shotgun in the back of their attic, cleans it up, and goes out to one of the abandoned pastures for an afternoon of shooting old aluminum cans.

His score is eight out of ten on the first day.

Harley isn’t about to let any witch hurt his family, fake or not.

-

Harley’s mom gets sick when he hits his senior year of high school, and his feet are swept out from under him by the amount of fear that comes with not knowing if he’s about to lose his only present parental figure.

She weakens quickly- it happens almost overnight, and that might be the scariest thing about it.

One night, she’s coughing and blowing her nose ( _ “Just a cold,”  _ she’d said in response to Harley and Abby’s concerned looks,  _ “I’ll be alright”) _ .

The next morning, Harley packs up his backpack for school, chugs a thermos of coffee, and swings by her room to say good-bye before he leaves. He’s greeted with a gray, drawn face nestled into the cushions; the wrinkles around his mother’s mouth are more defined than they’d been only a few hours ago.

He tries to help her out of bed.

She can’t do anything more than stay still as he lifts her off of the pillows and moves her to the couch in the living room, shouting for Abby to tell his teacher he’s not coming before calling nine one one.

Harley screams for them to come help his mother. They send an ambulance, take her to the only hospital in Rose Hill, and tell him that she’ll be fine.

Then, they call him back just to tell him that they have no idea what’s wrong and they can’t do anything about it. He should just come pick her up, take her home, and hope it passes.

He tells them  _ exactly  _ what he thinks about that idea. Tears the lead doctor a new one before pushing Macy in all her wheelchair-d glory out to his waiting Silverado, lifting her into the passenger seat, and roaring out of that hospital parking lot like the devil’s on his heels.

“They coulda done better,” he had snapped, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “They coulda done  _ better,  _ mama.”

Macy’s hand had found his right wrist, holding it gently between frail fingers. She hadn’t said anything, but he’d known what she had meant.

She knew they hadn’t tried.

Over the course of six months, Harley calls every specialist within a hundred mile radius of Rose Hill in a series of desperate attempts to save his mother. 

A steady cycle of men and women makes its way through their front door. 

Nobody knows what to do. 

Harley doesn’t know  _ what to do. _

He goes so far as to pray, knelt by the side of his bed for hours on end with his head in his hands and his heart on his sleeve. The Keener family has never done much in terms of passing religion on- Macy is a devout Christian, of course, and Abby says grace before dinner.

Harley hasn’t ever looked to a higher power for help.

He doesn’t have anyone here on earth, though, so in the end, there isn’t anywhere else to turn.

Macy spends her days in bed with a Bible clutched in her hands and her eyes closed, lips moving wordlessly to the tune of some prayer she knows by heart and can repeat without thought.

Sometimes, Harley wishes he could turn so faithfully to something bigger than him.

In the end, though, nothing happens. She stays weak and tired and keeps getting worse and he runs out of options. 

Runs out of money.

The Keener family reaches a point where, despite all of their hard work and persistance, they’re barely scraping by. 

Macy’s job as a waitress had been their sole stream of income, so they’d already been close to the bottom of the barrell when she’d fallen ill. Harley had occasionally brought in little bursts of cash from fixing peoples’ cars or delivering parts to the local mechanic, but that’s not a stable job.

They can’t survive on  _ little bursts of cash.  _ He needs a  _ job,  _ something with a reliable salary. Something to keep Abby fed and Macy’s bills paid.

Something to keep them in their  _ house,  _ for God’s sake.

Harley just needs to pay the bills. Electricity. Water. Groceries.

It’s a late night when Macy finds him crying at the kitchen table, head resting in his hands as he stares down at a stack of papers marked with red ink with a pen in his hand. His AP Calculus homework and textbook are pushed aside, all but forgotten along with his dinner and a glass of water leaving rings on the table as condensation drips down, down, down.

“I dropped out,” he croaks, red eyes darting up to meet hers.

He looks ashamed of himself. Disappointed. After all, he’d been a senior. If he’d just been able to make it a few more months, he could’ve-

Macy doesn’t say anything she’s thinking about. Doesn’t tell him he should enroll again, because she knows he won’t.

He’s like his father, even though she knows he would hate to hear it. James Keener- the man Harley had gotten his ever-hated middle name from- had been the most stubborn man Macy had ever met, and Harley’d inherited every bit of that hard-headedness.

She knows he hates it.

Knows he’ll ignore anything she tells him to do.

So, instead of doing what she knows a mother should do, Macy just leans forward, using the back of Harley’s chair for support, and pulls him into her arms.

He buries his face in her chest and  _ sobs.  _ For what feels like hours, he cries and cries and cries like a little boy, eventually tiring him out so much that he falls asleep right there with his head on top of that stack of awful bills.

She leaves him there. 

Can’t muster up the strength to move him to his bed.

Macy goes to sleep that night with a heavy heart and tears in her eyes, knowing that there’s nothing that can be done about their awful situation but very much aware of the fact that there’s nothing she can do to change it.

Harley is doing his best to keep them above the water. She just wonders if he’s going to let himself drown.

-

The idea hits him while he’s driving Abby to school on the way to his job at the local grocery store. 

He’s roaring across empty, cracked roads, swerving to avoid potholes left and right, arm hanging out the driver’s seat window. There’s a burnt-out cigarette between his fingers; Abby’s promised not to tell Macy that he’s smoking again. 

He knows he shouldn’t. Knows it’s not healthy, but it helps him feel like he can breathe.

Harley can’t really stop at this point. 

He’s turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

And he can’t find it inside him to care.

They’re about to turn into town, wheeling around the corner with speed that leaves Abby crowing, when he sees it- the pasture where Cade had parked his truck for them to tell their stories at three in the morning, overgrown with kudzu and a plethora of small, yellow flowers.

Their group has long since dispersed- Levi works at a gas station, Cade joined the army by lying on his recruitment form (Harley isn’t a snitch), Aidan’s the only one still in school, and Harley had ditched back in junior year when he first came out.

But he still remembers.

_ And they say, if you go out in the woods and keep moving past the first mile marker, the witch will come out to take you, too. _

Harley hasn’t ever dabbled in witchcraft- Macy would have a conniption if he did. That kind of thing is just as taboo in Rose Hill as being gay is. The townspeople would lable him as some kind of devil-spawn and that would be the end of him.

But if he’s already got one strike against himself-

_ And besides,  _ he thinks, turning into the parking lot of Rose Hill Elementary and letting Abby out after kissing her forehead,  _ the worst thing that could happen is that she takes me away. _

Would it really be too bad to be taken? To let himself be removed from all of this, leave Abby and Macy with the money he’s saved up and one less mouth to feed?

Wouldn’t that  _ help? _

_ Yeah. Yeah, that would help. _

There’s really no way he could go wrong here; either the witch helps his mother without removing him from the equation, or he removes  _ himself. _

Harley’s day job is at a Publix on the east side of Rose Hill. Everyone there knows and addresses him as Hal, which he hates with every fiber of his body. He stocks shelves, bags groceries, and helps people find what they need.

It pays minimum wage. He needs to be making more- would rather be doing something else- but nobody else would take him, so here he is.

Harley parks his truck in the back, hops out, and works like a machine for hours. He moves shipments of food, heavy and hard on his back, inside from the delivery area box-by-box. Restocks shelves of Frosted Flakes and Cheerios. Helps an older man find the hand sanitizer before explaining the names of the chemicals on the back because he doesn’t want anything carcinogenic and doesn’t seem to understand that it’s  _ hand sanitizer. _

The day runs long. Hour after hour piles up, and the entire time, Harley is thinking about the witch. Weighing pro’s and con’s. Trying to figure out if it’s the right thing to do, the Godly thing to do, and settles on a very firm  _ no. _

But it’s the  _ only  _ thing to do.

Harley waves a quiet good-bye to his manager, a woman in her forties who goes by Eileen, before jogging across the parking lot with his keys in his hand. 

It’s dark. Has to be past eleven now, if not later. He can barely see past the halos cast by the golden streetlights.

_ He should just go home.  _

Should he?

_ He  _ **_can_ ** _ just go home. _

Harley shakes his head, bites out a bitter laugh, and starts his truck.

No, he can’t.

The drive out to the west side takes about twenty minutes at a slow pace, and Harley spends every one of those minutes wondering whether or not he should turn back. 

He brakes hard for about eight deer. Swerves to avoid hitting one- a buck with a rack of antlers that must be three feet wide.

They all just stare at him before trotting their way off of the road, slow and deliberate and so  _ absolutely stupid. _

Is Harley being stupid? Hanging out in the middle of an open road, waiting for a car to come hit him?

He has the chance to get out of the road.

He doesn’t take it. Keeps driving, further and further into the west side, until he reaches the end.

There’s a cul-de-sac on the edge of town where teenagers hold parties. He can tell they’ve had one recently; when he steps out of his car, nail-studded baseball bat in hand, an empty beer can crunches loudly under his heel.

Harley flips the flashlight on. 

Shines it in the direction of the woods.

Takes a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly, before moving forward at a brisk pace, stepping over the curb into a bed of pinestraw.

He lingers at the edge of the woods, staring up at the canopy of dark trees, too high for his flashlight beam to reach.

This is for his family.

_ This is for his mother. _

Harley steps across the boundary, and this time, he doesn’t linger or look back. He just- he just  _ moves,  _ because if he stops, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep going.

There’s a buzzing in his stomach, low and angry and terrified. He hasn’t felt this way since Cade met him behind the high school and beat the living shit out of him. He’d left with a black eye, a bloody lip, and a new appreciation for the consequences of coming out when you aren’t ready for the fall out.

Cade had left with a dislocated shoulder, a concussion from being slammed into the school’s brick wall, and an understanding of how dangerous Harley Keener could be when he put his mind to it.

Harley had vowed to never let himself feel that helpless again.

He’d kept that vow.

Now, surrounded by towering pine trees and silence and darkness, Harley clenches his fingers tight around the handle of his bat and slings it over his shoulder, stepping purposefully over fallen branches and patches of moss. Pine needles crunch under the soles of his workboots. Somewhere overhead, an owl cries out. Harley sweeps his flashlight up, can’t catch a glimpse of the bird, and turns it back to his path.

Something green catches his eye.

He steps forward, biting his lip, nerves humming, to see  _ mile marker one  _ written on an aluminum sign.

The metal is scratched and graffitied.

“Oh, God,” Harley murmurs, staring up at the sign with an amount of trepidation he doesn’t think he’s ever felt. It looks like someone’s taken a  _ knife  _ to it- maybe fingernails? Oh,  _ God. _

Written in black paint across the bottom in a scrawl that makes him think a kid came out here to scare people, there are eight words.

_ Do not pass, for the witch lies beyond. _

A bit eloquent for a kid, but okay.

_ If you pass the first mile marker. If you pass the first mile marker. If you pass the first mile marker. _

Moving carefully, Harley steps around the sign, holding his breath as his feet hit the ground on the other side. He half expects some sort of monster- maybe a demon?- to swoop down from the trees and carry him away, braces himself for an attack, and-

Nothing happens.

There’s no witch, no monster, no demon.

Has he come all the way out here for nothing? He’s probably been walking for thirty minutes, and getting back to his house is a  _ forty minute drive _ . Abby and Macy probably think he’s dead or maybe that he’s  _ left them, just like dad- _

No. He can’t go back now.

Not when he’s so close.

Maybe he just has to go further?

Harley steels himself against the wall of fear before him and keeps moving. Treks further and further into the woods, passing gnarled trees and rock formations and patches of stagnant water. He walks for what must be hours, passing marker after marker, desperation drawing him further and further.

It has to be two in the morning when he finally decides that it’s time to turn back. 

Heaving a deep breath, Harley lets his shoulders drop. He’s about to turn and start the long walk back to his truck when he sees it- a golden light hovering a few feet away.

A globe.

It’s just- it’s just  _ floating,  _ about four feet in the air, emanating a soft warmth. The color isn’t harsh- it’s light, like melted butter.

“Witch,” Harley breathes, sucking a sharp breath in through his nose.

The globe bobs. 

_ Moves. _

Starts to drift to the right, slowly, like it’s making sure he sees where it’s going.

“You want me to follow?” He asks, voice hushed and quiet, as if he’s witnessing some kind of ritual. Miracle, more like it.

It bobs, just once, before continuing in the same direction.

And Harley, against all his better judgment, follows.

Follows it through the woods.

Sloshes through a stream, wincing as the edges of his pants soak with cold water. The globe bobs cheerily ahead of him.

Harley walks for another ten minutes or so, following the ball of light like it’s an anchor in a stormy sea, until another light appears in the distance.

The light grows.

Grows.

Grows until he’s facing a small cottage, thatched roof and all. The globe stops on the front porch, next to a small arrangement of herbs, and hovers in front of the door.

There’s a light on inside. It’s the same color as the globe, cheerful and buttery yellow.

“This is where you’re from?” Harley asks, throat dry.

The globe bobs and promptly disappears.

_ Well, it would be awful to come all this way and not get what you’re looking for. _

It takes three strides of his freakishly (okay, maybe not  _ that  _ freakish, but he certainly thinks so) long legs to span the steps of the porch. Under his feet, a cloth mat in front of the door spells out  _ welcome  _ in neat cursive. 

Harley looks down, absentmindedly scuffing his shoes against the mat, and knocks. 

A simple rap of his fingers. 

Then another.

_ Is this the right thing to do? Is he doing some sort of really bad religious taboo shit to save his religious mother? _

Possibly.

But it’s too late to go back now.

Footsteps, gentle and quiet, resonate underneath the crack in the door. Harley swallows dryly as the latch clicks, as the door creaks open, spilling warm light out into the dark night.

He’s expecting some sort of old woman with a sharp nose and gray hair and cold eyes. Maybe a few warts. Hunched back. Black hat. Would a broom be overkill? Probably, but that’s the only instance of witches he’s ever seen.

That’s not what he sees, though.

Standing on the other side of the threshold is a  _ boy-  _ a teenaged boy, definitely no older than Harley and probably a year or so his junior. Russet brown hair curls down into his eyes, cascading over his forehead and tucking itself around his ears, where a pair of shining orange stones are inlaid. 

The boy looks up at him, a few inches shorter and just about as slim, dark eyes shimmering in the light of his house. He smiles- a cheshire smile, slightly scary and just a  _ bit  _ too toothy. His canines are sharp. 

This boy, whatever he is, isn’t human.

“Can I help you?” He asks, voice lilting, syllables sharp and precise. “Or are you just going to stand there and stare at me until the sun comes up?”

Harley is very, very aware of the way his mouth is gaping open. He must look like an idiot, standing here with his mouth open like a goldfish, gawking at a stranger on his doorstep.

But he can’t seem to open his mouth.

The boy tilts his head to one side, lips pursed, and gives Harley a cursory glance. Something in his gaze softens. Melted butter on the counter. Ice cream dripping in the sun.

“You must be tired.” He steps aside, sock feet scuffling against the floor, and swings an arm out in the direction of the interior of his house. “Come inside and rest.”

Is there something about going inside witches’ houses? Is there something about  _ not  _ going inside witches’ houses?

_ Probably,  _ Harley thinks.

But it has just become painfully obvious how tired he is; he’s been walking all night and a good part of the morning.

He really does want to rest.

So he steps inside. Warily casts a glance at the boy, who smiles a significantly-less-toothy smile than before.

Somehow, the difference settles the nerves in his stomach.

He shouldn’t let his guard down.

Can’t really help it, though.

The inside of the cabin is warm, filled with light, and absolutely  _ covered  _ in Star Wars posters. Darth Vader. Luke Skywalker. Leia. Harley blinks, staring at one from  _ Empire Strikes Back _ hanging above a large bowl of purple rocks and a string of cloudy-white beads.

“You can go ahead and sit down there,” the boy says, pointing at a comfy-looking, possibly overstuffed couch in the living room. “I’ll get you some tea, okay? Then we can talk.”

Harley nods, still wordless, and plops down on a fluffy cushion. He glances at the coffee table, which is also- surprise- covered in gems and a few rare-looking plants. Also mint. Why mint? Doesn’t seem like it fits in very well. 

A warm cup of tea plunks itself down on the table, right in his line of sight, and Harley jumps. Wide eyed, he stares up at the boy, who settles down on the opposite side of the couch with a cup of his own floating beside his left shoulder.

“You made that-”

“I did.”

“You’re really a-”

The boy nods, eyes shining with mirth, before moving his pointer finger to the table. The cup sets itself down beside a large piece of tiger’s eye.

“I am,” he says gently. “Can I get a name, blondie?”

_ Are you supposed to give witches your name? Doesn’t that give them some sort of power over you? _

_ Nah, that’s faeries. _

“Harley,” Harley croaks, taking a sip of his still-steaming tea. “I’m H-Harley James Keener.”

“Nice name.” A pale hand is reached out in his direction. He takes it. Shakes it. Gulps. “I’m Peter Parker, Harley, and it’s lovely to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

_ He sounds so scared. Needs to stop that. Look strong, look dangerous, look like someone who’s not to be fucked with. This boy- this Peter- is a threat. Dangerous. _

“Now,  _ Harley James Keener,”  _ Peter murmurs around a mouthful of tea. His eyebrow, crooked perfectly above his left eye, twitches up into an arch. “What can I do for you?”

At Harley’s surprised expression, he laughs.

“People come to me for favors, Harley. Because they need something. Want something. Not because they want to make friends.”

Taking a deep breath, Harley wrings his hands, focusing in on the earring in Peter’s right lobe to avoid looking him in the eyes.

“My mom,” he says, voice shaking. “She’s- she’s real sick, has been for a while. I’ve done everythin’ I can, but I’m workin’ a job and still runnin’ out of money an’ I didn’t know where to go.”

Peter’s expression is sympathetic, lips downturned, and from the way he nods, it’s clear that he’s had people come to him about things like this before. He pulls his feet up from the ground, crosses them in his lap, and takes the cup in his hands.

“What’s her name?”

No hesitation. “Macy Keener. Macy  _ Elizabeth  _ Keener.”

Peter’s eyes close for a moment, barely a blink, before he’s opening them. His jaw clenches, the muscle working as he seems to drift off for a moment. 

There’s an orange glow to his eyes.

_ Volcanic,  _ Harley thinks.

He is volcanic. Not a boy.

An entity. 

Peter is an  _ entity. _

“I’ll do what I can,” he says, coming back down to earth with a grit to his teeth. “For her.”

There’s a pregnant pause between them. Awkward, perhaps, because suddenly, Harley’s wondering if there’s anything he  _ can  _ do.

“Thank you,” he whispers, taking a sip of what tastes like peppermint. 

Peter nods slowly and takes a deep breath, cocking his head further to the right like a lost puppy. “And you, Harley,” he says, curious and soft. “What do you want?”

_ What? _

“I’m just here for my momma.”

The laugh that escapes Peter’s lips is borderline cynical. He kicks his legs out, breaching the center of the couch to come over to Harley’s side, and throws an arm around Harley’s shoulders without so much as a warning.

Tensing, Harley sets his cup down and angles his body toward the other boy, refusing to let him out of his sight. Peter doesn’t seem to be planning anything, though- he just looks up at Harley with that toothy grin and shakes his head.

“No, you’re not,” he purrs. “You might not  _ know  _ that you’re here for anything else, but you are. Fess up,  _ Harls.” _

The nickname sends a shiver down Harley’s spine. He finds himself inching closer to Peter, eyes fixed on his lap, cheeks burning hot. He shouldn’t be feeling like this.

_ Shouldn’t be- _

That’s it.

“I’m gay,” he blurts out, biting his lip. “And I’m lonely. Because of that.”

Peter is silent for a moment, and Harley can’t bring himself to look over. His arm doesn’t move, still spanning the width of his shoulders, but his  _ energy  _ seems different than before. Less coarse. Spiky.

“I can help with that, too,” Peter says.

Harley looks at him in surprise, brow furrowed, and shrugs out of his grip. “How could you help me?” He asks, maybe too harshly.

Peter doesn’t look hurt by his change in demeanor. “I understand being lonely. Feeling like something about you is fundamentally wrong. I get it.”

Laughing harshly, Harley shakes his head. “This was a mistake. I should never have come here.”

He turns toward the door, ready to leave, make the long journey home, because he’s not okay with this, not okay with this,  _ not okay. _

But there’s an invisible force pulling at his sternum. Stopping him mid-step. Pulling him to a halt, freezing him bone by bone, muscle by muscle.

His chest feels like it’s been dropped into an ice bath.

_ Harley is going to die here.  _ Peter,  _ Peter the witch,  _ is going to kill him for disrespecting him and nobody is going to help his family.

A pair of warm hands land on his frozen shoulders, long fingers curling much too close to his neck. Peter’s breath is warm against his skin, puffy exhales and little inhales. He smells like rosemary.

Harley can feel lips against his skin as Peter, fingers tracing circles into his shoulders, leans in and speaks.

“You don’t get any take-backs, Harley,” he hisses. “You came to me for help, and you’re getting it whether you like it or not.”

Harley’s quaking with fear now, unable to move as Peter crosses around to his front and pushes himself up onto his tiptoes to study his face. Their noses are practically touching, so close,  _ so close. _

Peter traces his index finger over Harley’s cheek. The corner of his lip quirks up as he leans in again, lips brushing his ear, and smiles.

“Go home, Keener. I’ll contact you when I need you.”

And everything goes black.

Harley wakes up in his bed, the sun shining through his window, with an inescapable feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

_ What has he done? _

-

Peter does contact him- several times, in fact, whirling him away from work in the blink of an eye. One minute, he’ll be stacking cans of tomato soup. The next, he’s opening his eyes to see the warm woody interior of the Parker cabin and Peter’s familiar grin.

The questions range from simple to intricate. Harley finds himself having a hard time understanding why the witch- warlock? Is there a difference?- needs to know so much about his mother to cure her from a simple illness.

Peter just tells him to mind his own business and answer the questions when he asks, though, so it isn’t worth the time it takes to find out.

_ What kind of car did your mom drive? _

“A Toyota Camry.”

_ And what year was it made? _

“Uh- two thousand two, I think.”

_ Alrighty. Thanks. _

_ She went to the highschool here, right? _

“Yeah.”

_ Had a boyfriend? Girlfriend? _

“The only person she ever dated was my dad.”

_ When did they start dating? _

“Ah, I don’t- ninety-four, maybe? Wait, no, eighty-four.”

_ And you were born in? _

“Two thousand and three.”

_ When did your dad leave you? _

This one takes a little while for Harley to answer. He chokes his way past a barrage of tears- God, how is he not over this yet? Peter, despite his vaguely-harsh manner, watches patiently and conjures up a box of tissues with a sympathetic nod.

Harley wonders if Peter’s always lived alone here, or if he had somebody leave, too.

“When I was nine,” he croaks, balling up the tissue and tossing it into a nearby trashcan. “Uh, about eight years ago now.”

Peter doesn’t say anything, just nods again and scribbles something down in the red notebook that he keeps by his side whenever Harley’s around. His earrings glint in the light from a nearby lamp, casting fractiles of orange against his pale skin.

He’s very pretty, Peter Parker. 

_ Did your mom have any enemies, Harley? _

“She was the nicest person I’ve ever knew. Don’t think so.”

_ Well I need you to be very, very sure about your answer. _

“Uhm. Dad mighta left her for someone else?”

_ You think that’s a genuine possibility? _

“I guess so. Bein’ second choice wouldn’t make me too happy.”

So the thing is, Harley  _ knows  _ that, by this point, Peter knows every little thing about him, his family, and his insecurities. He seems to be able to read people with those unnerving eyes of his, and he’ll sit there with his notebook and just  _ stare  _ at Harley like he’s looking deep, deep into his soul. 

Peter has learned all of Harley.

But what’s bothering him is that Harley doesn’t know  _ anything about Peter. _

He’ll ask questions, sure, but the times that he gets more than a grunt as an answer are few and far in between, and those answers tend to be two or three words at most.  _ Yeah. No. Seventeen. Absolutely not. _

How is he supposed to trust this guy if he doesn’t know who he is? Who he’s been, who he’s known? Sure, he has a name to put with the face, but what is a name with nothing beneath?

So Harley pushes. Sits down on the fluffy couch on a rainy Thursday, Peter with his ever-present notebook a foot or so to his left, and asks.

“Have you always lived here by yourself?”

Peter’s eyes are wide when he looks up, tilting his head to one side. His eyebrows are low on his forehead, and the way the overhead lamp is shining casts his face into a menacing shadow.

Harley presses down on the feeling of foreboding in his chest and asks again.

Peter shakes his head once. His movements are jerky, and even thought Harley- as usual- can’t seem to make out his expression, he can tell that he’s hit a sore spot.

“And?” Harley prompts, shrugging his left shoulder carelessly and almost knocking a chunk of amethyst off of the nearest table.

“And what?” Peter asks. His voice is low, crackly.

He seems  _ tired. _

Suddenly, Harley understands. Understands the hostile exterior, the tough facade he’d put up on the day of their first meeting, the immediate bid he had made for dominance. It’s all about  _ control-  _ controlling your surroundings when you feel like you can barely control yourself.

Peter is struggling, too.

Peter feels different. Or, maybe, he feels  _ something  _ different- some emotion, some pull, some  _ want. _

And Peter has been left behind, too.

“Who left you?” Harley asks gently, scooting across the couch to rest his hand on Peter’s thigh. 

He’s trembling beneath his fingers. Gives a full-body flinch when skin meets skin, but doesn’t move. That’s a good sign.

“My aunt,” Peter croaks, eyes lowered to the neckline of Harley’s shirt. “She- she-”

He can’t seem to finish the sentence, raising his hand and clapping it over his nose and mouth before closing his eyes, still shaking, shaking, shaking.

Harley thinks this might be the first time somebody’s been here for him. He lives alone in the middle of the woods and probably only sees a few people a year- who was around when his aunt left and he had to cope with being abandoned? 

Nobody, if the way he’s crying lends any indication.

Harley hesitantly moves so that his thigh is pressed flush against Peter’s. He reaches out, winding his arm around the other boy’s shoulders, and leans in  _ just a little bit _ . Takes a deep breath.

Peter mirrors his breathing. He’s shuddering with the force of his tears, body shaking like a leaf in a rainstorm, and it’s obvious that he’s trying to get himself under control. Harley hums a single note under his breath and murmurs an  _ it’s okay, it’s okay,  _ and it all sets him off again.

He’s crying, too.

But there’s nothing wrong with that.

-

They get closer after the afternoon spent crying into each others’ shoulders. Harley visits more often, blinking out of existence whenever he thinks about Peter- apparently, Peter’s got some sort of sixth sense that tells him when he’s needed.

They spend entire days holed up in the cabin, sharing stories as Peter begins to start Macy’s healing process. He doesn’t seem to know what’s wrong, but he tells Harley that he’s got an idea about how to fix it.

Harley doesn’t pry. There’s no reason to.

He trusts Peter.

Trusts him with his mother’s life, his sister’s livelihood, his own secrets.

Maybe it’s not a good idea to trust the boy with the feral smile. Harley doesn’t care very much about whether something is a good idea, though, and he never had.

This is good enough for him.

Peter tells him, one day, about his aunt- May Parker, who had disappeared in the middle of the night that past summer, leaving him alone to take care of himself. He cries the whole time, and Harley holds him, thumbing circles into his skin just like he always does.

He tells him about his uncle’s death.

“He’d been cursed,” Peter had murmured, clutching a glass of water in his hands so hard that it seemed the cup would break. “I still don’t know who did it, but he just- he started getting so  _ weak,  _ Harley, and eventually he just- he  _ died. _ ”

They’d been quiet that day. 

Peter had shooed him through the door, eyes wide and teary, already pulling his notebook out of his pocket and thumbing through it like his life depended on it.

Harley’d learned not to argue with Peter when he was on a warpath. It never went well to bother him, to get in his way. When he was working, he was  _ working,  _ and that was that. Fighting wouldn’t help.

-

It all changes in early November, when the leaves start falling to the ground, leaving skeletons behind in the trees and coating the paths with watercolor paint. 

Harley walks home from work after a long day of sorting seed packets. He hasn’t talked to Peter in a few days, now- ever since their conversation about Ben Parker and the curse- and while it definitely worries him, he knows that he won’t be able to do anything until Peter’s ready.

He’ll call him when he’s needed. Just like he always does.

Abby is still at school when he marches through the door, groceries clutched in each hand, and nearly drops their dinner.

Eyes wide, choking on his breath, Harley takes a step back into the doorway. His heart is fluttering, skipping beats, he’s going to pass out-

“Oh, my  _ God,”  _ he whispers, staring at where Macy is sitting at the kitchen table. “Mom-”

She looks tired, wrinkles and bags prominent around her eyes. Weak, too, and sickly, but she hasn’t been able to get out of bed in  _ months- _

“Hey, Harley James,” Macy whispers. The corners of her eyes are smiling. “How are you doin’, baby?”

He’s across the room before he can blink, bending down to wrap his arms gently around his mother’s shoulders. The groceries are forgotten. Left behind on the living room carpet.

Macy is thin, practically all bones, but she is  _ here. _

She is  _ alive. _

And he knows, deep down, that he has Peter to thank.

But he can’t begin to think about that now.

They spend hours talking about nothing and everything- the past few months, how she feels, how she made it to the kitchen on her own. Abby comes crashing through the door around four and immediately flies into Macy’s arms, sobbing just as hard as Harley, and they spend the night celebrating.

She’s getting stronger.

And she keeps getting stronger over the course of the next month. Every day the darkness beneath her eyes lessens and lessens. She can walk further without stumbling, can stand long enough to help Harley with breakfast, and eventually, can go an entire day without feeling like she has to lie down. 

She gets back to her healthy self before December starts.

And Peter is nowhere to be found.

Harley feels a bit guilty, looking back at how long it took for him to realize that Peter hasn’t tried to contact him  _ at all. _

He’s just been so happy to have his mother back. Can he really be blamed?

Nah. But he’s going to fault himself nonetheless. 

He waits for another week to see if Peter will do his snappy-snappy thing and call him back to the cabin, and when he doesn’t, he starts to really worry. No matter how much he thinks about his friend- when did it become friend?- he never wakes up in the cabin, never finds himself on the couch with a cup of tea in his hands and an earring-d boy sitting across from him.

He falls asleep thinking about him. Wakes up thinking about him.

It feels like the worry gets worse and worse every day. Magnifies. Multiplies, ten by ten by ten, because  _ why hasn’t he checked on me? Why hasn’t he told me what he did to save her? Why hasn’t he wanted to talk? _

Is he okay?

Harley waits until he can’t wait anymore, until he can’t physically hold himself back from making sure Peter isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Without the snappy-snappy magic, he has no quick way to get to the cabin, so he loads his truck up and kisses his mother on the forehead and tells her that, if he isn’t back within ten hours, she should call him.

He’ll tell her if he needs her.

Everything is okay.

Harley takes off, flooring the gas pedal and roaring into the streets like a bat out of hell. Cars pull over in front of him. Their drivers shout and flip him off.

He doesn’t care.

He’s gotten close to Peter in the last few months, and somehow, in some awfully annoying way, he can’t seem to think of what would happen if he were to lose him.

He doesn’t even know when he got so attached.

But, like it or not, Harley wants to be a part of Peter’s life now. He wants to watch Peter as he grows up and they become adults and, more than anything, he wants to stay by his side. He wants him to be  _ okay. _

Harley doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

But he knows he’s going to do  _ something,  _ and that’s enough.

This time, he doesn’t stop at the edge of the woods, barrelling straight through the tree line and barely avoiding a large pine. The truck is barely able to fit in the gap between tree trunks, but Harley is  _ good.  _ He knows what he’s doing right now; street racing has been a part of his life since he was fifteen and borrowed a friend’s car to race someone who’d told him he was going to hell.

He’d beat that little asshole into the ground.

The front wheels crash up and over a protruding root, then the back wheels. Harley keeps himself rooted firmly in his seat and breaths through the jolt, pushing the accelerator even further down.

Peter could just be busy.

But there’s a feeling of dread deep in his chest that tells him that, no. He’s not. 

Something is wrong.

The mile marker comes and goes, and Harley follows the trail he remembers to the small cabin. He’s probably been driving for an hour or two, now, and he can’t help but wonder if that’s an hour or two too long.

The ever-present gold lights that Peter keeps stoked constantly are out.

His cabin is dark, standing in its little copse of pine trees beneath a cold, unforgiving sky of stars. Moonlight shines down on the roof like liquid silver, cascades down to the ground.

Harley shivers and kills the engine of his car. 

Steps out.

Pinestraw crunches beneath his boots as he climbs the path to the front steps. A chill runs down his spine when he sees that the plants beside the door are dead, long-dried. Their leaves are shriveled and brown.

“Peter,” he whispers, eyes wide and stinging with unshed tears.

_ Peter always takes care of his plants. Waters them daily, just like they’re his kids. He’d never let them die. _

It’s without hesitation that Harley musters up all of his strength and, rearing back, sends his foot crashing straight into the doorknob. It breaks off at his shattered cry, rolling onto the ground. The brass is dented beyond repair.

The door creaks open as Harley pushes through. He squints at the darkness, bracing himself for some unknown terror to launch itself out of the dark, and pulls a flashlight out of his pocket before flicking it on.

The beam illuminates a small pile of shattered glass next to the coffee table. Harley crouches down, taking a large shard gingerly in his hand, and draws in a sharp breath when he realizes what it is.

Peter’s favorite coffee mug, broken beyond repair.

Harley drops the piece of glass like it’s burned him, standing quickly and frantically dusting his hands off on his jeans. The flashlight beam comes up in a wide arm to shine over an arc, lighting up the empty rafters.

“Peter?” Harley calls out, not caring about how loud his voice is. “Peter, come on, this isn’t funny-”

He steps around the couch and almost passes out.

Peter is lying on the wooden floorboards behind his couch, sprawled out on his back with his head tilted to one side. His hair spills over his forehead, resting above his closed eyes, and the pale pallor of his skin seems to have bleached itself of any color. 

From the way he’s positioned, he looks like he’s fainted.

_ Or dead. _

Harley pushes the thought down and, dropping the flashlight, crouches down to kneel beside Peter’s head. The hoodie he’s wearing is rumpled and dirty.

There’s a smear of blood beside his lip.

“Oh, my God,” Harley chokes out, reaching down with a shaking hand to cup Peter’s jaw. He’s completely pliant, putty in Harley’s hands, as the taller boy tilts his head back to face the ceiling.

Peter doesn’t open his eyes.

A pair of trembling fingers come to rest against the pulse point on his neck. Harley holds his breath, eyes wide and terrified, as he waits for a beat.

“Please,” he murmurs, bending down even further to rest his head against the black fabric of Peter’s hoodie. “Please, Peter,  _ please-” _

There. A single beat, few and far in between, but there.

_ Is he breathing? _

Harley can’t tell, but he doesn’t think so.

The panic almost blocks his thought process, but he manages to pull himself together as much as he possibly can. What do you do when someone’s heart is beating but they’re not breathing? CPR?

No. 

Rescue breaths.

Harley’s cheeks flush red as he leans down and, pinching Peter’s nose between thumb and forefinger, presses his open mouth over Peter’s lips. He delivers a single puff of air to the other boy’s lungs, then another, then another, before pulling back and holding his fingers under his nose.

There’s a little bit of pressure against his fingers.

A little bit of movement to Peter’s otherwise-motionless chest.

He’s breathing.

_ He’s breathing. _

“Okay,” Harley mutters, looking around frantically to find something to help. He pulls the fluffy blanket down from the back of the couch and, wrapping it around Peter’s cold body, gathers him up before standing and heading toward the door.

“You’re going to be okay, Peter,” he says, even though he knows he can’t hear him. “You’re going to be okay. I’m taking you to my mom.”

Peter’s head lolls back against his shoulder. Harley winces, stopping to adjust his position so that his neck doesn’t hurt too much, before kicking the passenger door open and lifting him into the seat.

Peter collapses against the armrest. 

_ He’s alive _ , Harley thinks.  _ Alive. _

_ But he won’t be for long if you don’t get him home. _

He closes the door and gets into his own seat, taking off without bothering to fasten his own seatbelt. Somewhere in the twists and turns, Peter’s hand comes loose from the blanket.

Harley finds himself reaching down to grip it in his own. Fingers against pulse point and cold skin.

He’s doing what he can to keep himself together.

He just doesn’t know if it’ll be enough.

-

Macy doesn’t seem to know what to do when her shouting son comes racing into her house with an unfamiliar boy lying half-dead in his arms.

She stands in the doorway of the living room for a moment, Abby cowering behind her with wide eyes, as Harley starts crying and lifts the boy up, expression hopelessly sad. 

It doesn’t matter who this kid is or what his connection is to her son.

Harley Keener doesn’t cry for much, and if he’s enough to mess her kid up like this? Macy simply isn’t going to have it.

She snaps into action like a woman scorned, ordering Harley to take the boy into his room and set him down on the bed before sending Abby to the bathroom for the medicine basket. She starts boiling a pot of water, soaks a cloth as soon as it’s ready, and bustles into Harley’s room with an authoritative air that her children have never seen.

Harley’s eyes are red from crying so much. The boy is laid across the top of the sheets, head cushioned against the pillow, chin tilted back. His hands are folded across his stomach.

“Mom?” Harley asks, voice choked with tears. “Please-”

“I will, honey,” Macy murmurs. “Hold this against his forehead, okay? Keep it there.”

She hands him the washcloth, nodding warmly, before heading back out to rustle through the medicine cabinet for anything that could help.

Harley folds the cloth into a neat strip before pressing it against Peter’s forehead with all the gentle care he can muster, pulling his fingers through the other boy’s curly hair in the only gesture he’s ever known to help him calm down. His hair is soft and red highlights shimmer in the light of Harley’s room.

Against the blue comforter, Peter’s skin looks as transparent as ice. He feels as cold as it, too.

“You’re gonna be okay, Peter,” Harley whispers, resting his free hand in the center of his chest. The gentle rise and fall of his ribs feels like a promise- he is alive, he is breathing, he has a chance.

He has a chance.

Is that enough?

It feels like hours pass before Macy walks back in, a bottle of tylenol in her hand, and orders for Harley to open his mouth and hold his head. He does as he’s told, wincing when Peter’s chest spasms and half of the red liquid spills out of the sides of his mouth like some watered-down version of blood.

“Who is this, baby?” Macy asks, filling up another medicine cup and pouring it into Peter’s mouth.

He keeps it down this time. Harley breathes a sigh of relief and carefully lays his head back down, positioning it on the pillow so he won’t wake up with a crick in his neck.

If he wakes up at all.

“He’s my friend,” Harley whispers, eyes fixed on Peter’s motionless face. Then, because he knows that there’s no use in lying, “I went to him ‘cause I knew he could save you. An’ he did, momma, he really  _ did,  _ but I went to check on ‘im today and he was-”

He cuts himself off with a sob, leaning over the bed to catch his head in his hands. His shoulders shake as he takes the boy’s hand in both of his, clenching it like it’s his lifeline.

It takes a moment for the realization to register in Macy’s mind. She goes through all stages of grief in about three seconds- her son has been hanging around with a  _ witch,  _ that witch saved her  _ life,  _ that witch seems to be dying in her house, and her son is in  _ love  _ with the witch.

“What’s his name, Harley James?” She asks quietly, stepping away from the bed.

Harley’s voice is quiet. He doesn’t look up from the boy’s hands, doesn’t release his grip, but he  _ does  _ speak.

“Peter, momma.”

_ Peter. _

And Macy walks out.

She needs to do some thinking.

Left behind with only Peter to keep him company, Harley chokes out another sob and, without a second thought, crawls onto his bed. He turns on his side and throws one arm over Peter’s chest, slips the other behind his head to hold him close, and gently places his leg over both of Peter’s.

“I love you,” Harley whispers into Peter’s ear, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I really love you, Peter.”

And he falls asleep.

-

Peter wakes with an awful shout, drawing a deep gasp of air into his struggling lungs. He feels like he can hardly breathe, like there’s some sort of weight on his chest, like a vice is pressing down on his ribs and getting ready to crush him.

He feels like he’s on fire. All of him is burning, crinkling like a sheet of paper on fire and flaking away, he’s in so much  _ pain-  _ what did he do to deserve this? Is this some sort of divine punishment for his magic? 

A loud groan rips its way out of Peter’s chest and claws past his lips, freezing in the air like a stream of ice. 

“Peter?”

_ Harley. _

A pair of arms unwind around his torso. In the darkness, Peter watches, immobile, as a familiar shape rises above him, craning down over him like some sort of avenging angel.

He can hardly move, completely at the mercy of his surroundings.

But the halo of golden hair above his head tells him that he’s safe. He’s protected. He’s alright.

Harley’s eyes are wide as he stares down at Peter, mouth gaping half-open as if he’s seen some sort of miracle.

“ _ Peter,”  _ Harley breathes.

He reaches down, fluttering fingers coming to rest against Peter’s cheek, and slips his other hand behind his neck before lifting him up into a sitting position. A new line of fire races down Peter’s spine. He gasps, head drooping against Harley’s grip, and barely manages to fall into the blond’s chest.

“Oh, my God, you’re okay,” Harley murmurs. He’s shaking, warm against Peter’s skin, and the latter manages to muster up enough energy to lift a hand and grip Harley’s shoulder before pulling himself up face him eye to eye.

“Harley,” he says, voice barely a rasp. “You- where-”

“I found you in your cabin,” Harley sobs, cupping Peter’s face in his hands. “You- you looked  _ dead,  _ Peter, I thought you were dead-”

“There was a curse on your mom.” Peter blinks the tears out of his eyes, feels as they run down his cheeks, doesn’t really care that much. “And I lifted it. But- but it took too much out of me, and I-”

“I’m so glad you’re okay.  _ Peter,  _ I don’t know what I would’ve done…”

There’s a moment of silence between the two. Peter can feel himself regaining control over his body, and he lifts a hand to place it on Harley’s shoulder.

“I love you,” he says, looking him straight in the eyes. “I love you, Harley.”

He can see the moment it registers in Harley’s sky-blue eyes. They’re sparkling with tears, but he can still make out the surprise and the subsequent increase of tears.

_ Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. _

He should’ve known better- Harley had confided in him about feeling like an outcast and being afraid of the things he wanted, and now Peter’s brought those things to the surface and he’s going to be so angry and disgusted and  _ revolted. _

“I’m so-”

Harley moves quickly, pressing his index finger gently over Peter’s trembling lips and leaning in with one of the biggest smiles he’s ever seen. “You mean it?” He asks, and the sheer  _ hope  _ in his voice is too much to resist.

“I do,” Peter whispers.

Even though it seems impossible, Harley’s smile grows even more. His hand slips down from Peter’s chin to cup his jawline, fingers resting behind his ear in a way that makes him shiver.

“I love you, too.”

It’s a subconscious decision, the one he makes to lean in and press his lips against Harley’s. Peter rests his hands on the other boy’s shoulders and tilts his head to the right, a happy hum escaping his lips as Harley pulls him impossibly closer. Their chests are flush up against each other. Harley’s room is cold, but they’re  _ blisteringly  _ warm, pressed into each other and melding together like soft metal.

Harley’s left hand makes its way down to the hem of Peter’s sweatshirt and stops there, long fingers wrapping around the back of his hip to hold him steady as he pushes forward. The feeling of his tongue against Peter’s lips is a foreign one, and he shudders before opening his lips  _ just  _ enough for it to swipe against his own.

Harley squeaks a bit there, surprised and clearly a bit giddy. His lips are curled up against Peter’s, and he mirrors the position before slowly leaning back, Harley clutched close to him, moving until his back hits the soft blankets.

There are quiet chuckles and a litany of soft breaths as Harley repositions himself, slinging one leg over Peter’s hips. He blushes, smiling up at the other boy and pushing his curtain of curls out of the way to carve a path to his eyes.

His  _ eyes. _

“You’re so pretty, Harley,” Peter laughs, reaching up to brush his own hair out of his face. “I don’t understand how anyone could be as pretty as you.”

The only response he gets is a quiet chuckle. Harley’s hand burns hot through the fabric of his hoodie, and in a few slow movements, he slips it under the hem to meet the bare skin of Peter’s stomach. They don’t lose eye contact once, and the question is clear in Harley’s eyes- is this okay?

Peter nods, maybe a bit too frantically, and bites his lip as Harley slowly lowers himself down onto the bed and slots his lips back onto his.

This kiss is less graceful than the last- teeth click together, Peter probably laughs too much, and Harley’s hand gets caught on the inside of his sweatshirt. He tastes like apples and cinnamon, and Peter finds himself unable to understand how he got into this position. 

He’s never kissed anybody. Let alone  _ like this. _

His eyes flutter shut when Harley gently tilts his head back, fingers laced into his hair, and presses a few deliberate kisses to his jawline. One behind his ear, clicking against his earring, and Peter  _ gasps  _ when his teeth snag on his earlobe.

“You alright, darlin’?” Harley asks gently, pulling back to look down at Peter, eyes wide.

Peter nods, mustering up the last bit of his failing strength to dart up and plant a kiss on his lips.

“Can we go to bed?” He asks, voice cracking.

Harley nods and slowly inches his way off of Peter, flipping over to stare up at the ceiling. Peter takes a deep breath and shifts, turning onto his side so that he can throw his arm across Harley’s stomach.

“This okay?” He murmurs blearily.

Harley nods, glancing down at him with a soft light in his eyes before slipping his arm under Peter’s head and pulling the covers over both of their bodies.

“More than okay.”

-

Macy wakes them up in the morning with a loud rap on the door. Harley doesn’t pretend to miss the full-body flinch that Peter gives, jolting against his chest with a wide-eyed gasp, but he doesn’t point it out.

“You’re alright,” he mutters, flipping around a bit so that he’s no longer half on top of Peter’s shoulder. He leans in, brushes a stray curl out of his face, and smiles.

There’s something about this that feels strangely domestic. Peter had been on the edge of death only hours before, pale and cold as a day-old body, and now he’s lying under Harley’s sheets with that feline grin that he’d managed to fall in love with.

He’s happy. Ecstatic, even.

For the first time in his life, Harley doesn’t feel any sort of dread pertaining to his desires. He  _ loves  _ Peter, loves him an inordinate amount, and that’s alright. That’s okay.

“There’s nothing wrong with us,” he says, absentmindedly trailing his hand over Peter’s jaw. “We’re good, Peter.”

Peter nods, eyes shining, and presses a kiss to his cheekbone. “We are.”

-

A month later finds Peter sitting shotgun in Harley’s truck, fully conscious and grinning as they whirl through snow-tinted streets with what could be considered an illegal amount of speed. He’s laughing, whooping with his arm hanging out the window.

His nose is cherry red from the cold. Harley knows that his probably is, too, and reaches up with one hand to tug his cap further down over his ears.

He smiles fondly at the boy sitting next to him, turns down the nearest street that leads to the backroads, and guns it, flooring the gas pedal so hard the tires squeal and nearly lose traction against the icy roads.

Peter barks out a sharp laugh and waves his left hand. Brings them back into the middle of the road. His eyes glow that reminiscent shade of orange, matching his studs, before fading back to chestnut brown.

He’d regained his powers a few weeks ago. It had been an infuriating wait- Peter had spent half the time falling apart in the kitchen with Macy and Harley watching helplessly, neither of them having had any idea about what to do.

Macy likes him. Approves of their relationship, which is more than Harley could’ve ever asked for.

She’s not sure about the witch thing, though.

Harley takes a sharp turn, spinning the wheel freely, and roars past that empty, long-abandoned field. It only catches a passing glance before he’s pulling forward and taking a turn at the next intersection.

Peter laces the fingers of his left hand into Harley’s right and squeezes twice, eyes shining with mirth.

And, together, they take off under a canopy of snow-dotted trees, blanketed by the slate-gray cover of a cloudy sky.


End file.
